Winning ideas saluted at Startup Weekend

Sunday

The results of the 54-hour Startup Weekend Gainesville have emerged with the best entrepreneurial ideas awarded to four winners.

The results of the 54-hour Startup Weekend Gainesville have emerged, with the best entrepreneurial ideas awarded to four winners.

The first place winner was an idea called DropBeat, a phone app "to help white guys learn to dance," event representative Nikhil Kundra said.

The app determines what song is being played in the user's vicinity and cause the phone to vibrate in their pocket at the "drop beat" of every measure of the song. The vibration helps struggling dancers maintain a rhythm that matches the song's.

The second place winner was MobileVet, an application designed to organize on-demand health care for your pet.

Two awards were given for third place. A smart helmet, targeted towards motorcyclists, that plays music, flashes a light when the driver goes too fast and automatically dials 911 in the event of a crash was one winner. The other was a program called Nurses' Report, which lets nurses rate physicians. The program was created with the intent of providing a more objective view of physicians, Kundra said.

During the Startup Weekend, participants pitched ideas for innovative businesses and then formed teams to develop the most popular ideas. A panel of judges picked the final winners after a weekend of exhaustive entrepreneurial development. Winners' ideas have the potential to be turned into a tangible business.

Kundra said he was certain the winning ideas would grow into businesses in the Gainesville area.

"The amount of development that they already did was extraordinary," he said.

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